Do not talk
about not being on a level with Currer Bell, or regard him as "an
awful person"; if you saw him now, sitting muffled at the fireside,
shrinking before the east wind (which for some days has been blowing
wild and keen over our cold hills), and incapable of lifting a pen
for any less formidable task than that of writing a few lines to an
indulgent friend, you would be sorry not to deem yourself greatly his
superior, for you would feel him to be a poor creature.
'You may be sure I read your views on the providence of God and the
nature of man with interest. You are already aware that in much of
what you say my opinions coincide with those you express, and where
they differ I shall not attempt to bias you. Thought and conscience
are, or ought to be, free; and, at any rate, if your views were
universally adopted there would be no persecution, no bigotry. But
never try to proselytise, the world is not yet fit to receive what
you and Emerson say: man, as he now is, can no more do without creeds
and forms in religion than he can do without laws and rules in social
intercourse. You and Emerson judge others by yourselves; all mankind
are not like you, any more than every Israelite was like Nathaniel.
'"Is there a human being," you ask, "so depraved that an act of
kindness will not touch--nay, a word melt him?" There are hundreds
of human beings who trample on acts of kindness and mock at words of
affection.
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